Lots of baking books and Mince Pierogies

I've been meaning to post for a while about all the lovely baking books I've received as presents recently. Some where for Christmas and some were just because but I got quite a few and now I have so many recipes I want to try out that they will keep me in ideas for a very long time.
Anyway I took a picture of the newest additions to my recipe books. here they are:

You'll notice a book called Kinky Cupcakes that was from my great friend Mandie and it's such a cool and different book that gives you instructions on how to decorate cupcakes in really different and elaborate ways. I haven't attempted any yet but when I have a free afternoon I will definitely give it a go. Just look at these:

They involve making your own chocolate legs. The cupcake on the front of the book has legs sprouting from a can can skirt.

Another great book in that pile is the one called Taste Baking and that's where the recipe for today comes from. It's a wonderful book filled with not only sweet baking but also savoury ideas. And for once on my day of baking I didn't make sweet treats and stuck to savoury.

I tried a recipe called Mince Pierogies, something I had never heard of before and cant even pronounce the name but they are basically a bread roll with beef mince, onions and mushrooms baked inside. They're great for a hot lunch or a snack for visiting friends.

And here they are:

And here's how they're made (I've added to and adjusted the recipe slightly from the book to add my own favorite spices and change the size)

250g Plain flour (I found I needed quite a bit more as the dough was too sticky so used more like 300 - 320g)
7g sachet of easy bake yeast (The recipe only called for 3 1/2g but i tried to add a bit more as I'd added more flour an ended up adding the whole sachet but it worked fine.)
100ml Lukewarm milk
2 eggs
Pinch of sugar
2 tbsp Oil (I used olive)
1 tbsp Butter
1 Onion, chopped
1 Clove of garlic, chopped
200g Minced beef
50g Mushrooms peeled and chopped (I was far to lazy to peel)
1 Egg yolk, beaten
1/2 tsp Paprika
Dash of chili powder
Salt and pepper

Sieve the flour into a bowl and sprinkle over the yeast. Add the milk, eggs sugar and 1 tbsp of oil and mix. Knead into a soft elasticy dough. Cover and allow to rise in a warm place for 30 minutes. 

Heat the butter with the remaining oil. Gently fry the onion and garlic. Add the mince and fry until brown, mix in the mushrooms and fry for 1 - 2 minutes, season with salt, pepper, paprika and chili or whatever herbs and spices take your fancy. 

Heat the oven to 240 deg C

Roll out the dough onto a floured surface (the recipe didn't specify how thick, I went for around 2cm.) and cut out circles about 6cm in diameter. I wanted my rolls to be bigger than the recipe (partially because I'm greedy and partially because I'm lazy and dint want the fiddly job of filling tiny circles) so i cut out circles of about 10cm diameter. 

Spoon a mound of filling onto each circle fold to make a semi circle and press the edges down well (It is really important to make sure they are really well sealed as I had a couple burst.)

Place on a baking sheet lined with greaseproof paper, brush with egg yolk and leave to rise for a further 15 minutes.

Bake for 15 minutes until golden brown.

So there you have it! Something savory for a change (Although you could easily fill these rolls with something sweet, diced apple etc.)


After I had made these I couldn't leave the kitchen without making something sweet though  - I think I have an addiction. So I made some more muesli bars but this time I added a lot less butter and less syrup left out the cranberries and coconut and added 2tbsp of crunchy peanut butter and they worked really well.

The original muesli bar recipe is on the last post and I also linked it up to this other great blog I found sweet as sugar cookies . Where each week the blogger hosts Sweets for Saturday. It's a great place to find new recipes and blogs to follow.

Anyway that's it for today.

Bye for now

Cupcake Kris